by T S O'Rourke
‘I think he was just thinking of your daughter, Tracy – he wasn’t having a go at you,’ Carroll said, trying to rescue the situation.
The last thing they needed was to lose Tracy Goode as a snout – it was hard enough to get the toms talking at the best of times, but when you had one that was ringing you it was a good idea to keep her sweet. You could never tell when it would pay off. Carroll dipped into his pocket and pulled out a twenty, placing it on Tracy’s coffee table. She said nothing. Grant didn’t agree with paying for this kind of information, but knew better than to open his big mouth again.
‘Listen, Tracy, if you hear anything, and I mean anything, will you give me a call?’ Carroll asked, buttoning up his raincoat. ‘It could make the difference between life and death for one of your mates.’
‘They’re not my mates – but I know what you mean – if I hear anything I’ll give you a shout, all right?’ Tracy said.
‘Cheers – you’ll be doing all of us a big favour and we won’t forget this, Tracy – I’ll have a word with the uniforms – get them to leave you alone for a while, all right?’ Carroll said. Tracy nodded, Grant looked on in disbelief. It just wasn’t the way he liked to operate.
Outside in the car, Grant began his little ranting session.
‘Don’t you ever do that to me in front of anyone again – understand – it’s bad enough you paying her, but to promise that you’ll have a word with the uniforms is completely out of order. You can’t go around making promises like that!’
‘Listen, Tonto – you nearly lost us the only decent source of information we have on this damned case – so don’t start getting fuckin’ religious with me now. You insulted her in the worst possible way – you said that her daughter would reject her because of what she does – think about it, man – she’s probably only actually on the game in order to give the kid and herself a decent standard of living. And there you go criticising her. That’s why I gave her the twenty – she earned it. If you remember rightly, it was Tracy who rang us this time – nobody forced her to do it – so think on, okay?’
‘I still don’t like it.’
‘You don’t have to,’ Carroll said, starting the car.
Chapter 18
King’s Cross at nine on a Friday night is nothing spectacular – at least not if you’re one of the right-minded people that prosecuting barristers talk of.
A constant stream of traffic, both of the vehicular and drug type, kept the place alive – but only just. The attempts at cleaning up the Cross were a desperate failure, Carroll thought. Everything about the place sang of shoddy workmanship and apathy.
From the small bed & breakfast joints and the sleazy and grimy hotels that littered the area, to the jaded fast food outlets, King’s Cross came over as a tired and wasted hooker – which is exactly what it was. The bars, home to every degree of low-life, kept the local cops on their toes, but other than that the action was thin on the ground – most of the Cross dwellers knew how to avoid the local cops, and they had it down to a fine art.
The Cross was, and always would be, a place that could never really shake off its past. It was a Cinderella that would never make it to the ball, the frog that would never make it with a princess. A lot of people liked it that way – including Carroll.
Whether it was the air of desperation that hung so unashamedly over the place, or the very basic displays of animal instinct that were a part of everyday life for the inhabitants, he couldn’t decide. But whatever it was, it created the back-drop to Carroll’s imaginary world, where he could play detective to the best of his ability. He’d never felt too good about rubbing shoulders with the upper-classes – and there were quite a lot of their number to be found in Islington and Canonbury. No, it was amongst the whores and pimps, the junkies and dealers, the wide-boys and the kerb-crawlers that Dan felt at home. These were people he could understand, people with whom he could relate.
The tired hookers, the mean-faced pimps, the desperate junkies, the flush pushers, the sex-starved husbands, the homeless kids – it was a pitiful sight, but it was also beautiful in a strange sort of way. Almost as if it were the subject of a painting by an old master. But this picture could tell a thousand stories everyday – not just the one. The expressions of despair, greed, disgust and pain on the faces of the people on the Cross could fill volumes. Each individual carrying enough emotional baggage to bring them down to where they now were – at the bottom of the pile. Some believed they deserved to be where they were – others were just resigned to a life of drudgery, hassle from the law and cold nights on the street, inhaling the noxious emissions from the passing buses and taxis. The diesel engine had a lot to answer for in the eyes, and most particularly the lungs, of the Cross dwellers.
Grant didn’t like the Cross. To him, the Cross was everything that was wrong with the world – a stinking dungeon of evil, waiting to infect the population. It was as though the people in the area were living in some weird post-apocalyptic world where begging and stealing and general crime was the only way to make a living. No, Grant didn’t like the Cross, and he sure as hell didn’t have the strange ideas that Carroll had.
‘This place is the pits,’ Grant said, as they pulled up around the corner from the station, on York Way.
The place was as busy as an anthill, and amidst the tired looking commuters who had worked late on the Friday evening, were the Cross dwellers. Pick-pockets and whores stood brazenly outside the side entrance to the station, waiting for the next opportunity.
It was cold, and the frosted breath of those on duty rose in the sulphur-stained street light like a huge cloud of cigarette smoke.
‘Well, shall we get out and see if we can find her?’ Carroll suggested.
‘Maybe we should just sit here for a little while, see if she’s there, you know?’
‘We could be sitting here all night – look, I’ll go and ask for her – if the two of us go it might look like we’re cops, and then they’ll just clam up.’
‘Most of them will probably recognise you....’
‘I doubt it – maybe one or two, but there’s a fairly big turnover in hookers here – they don’t last too long.’
‘Well, I’ll wait here in the car, okay?’
‘Yeah, fine,’ Carroll said, secretly wishing that Grant would just fuck off for good and leave him alone to work the way he liked. The expression ‘ball and chain’ came into his mind, and he could see Grant as the ball, holding him back at every hurdle. Christ, he thought, Sarah has never given me this much hassle and she’s suffering from MS!
Carroll stepped out of the car and walked confidently towards where the hookers stood in their short skirts and low-cut tops, displaying their wares to prospective customers. Most looked either too old or completely junked-up. He scoured the ten, maybe fifteen women ahead of him with his eyes and went for the smallest, with reddish hair.
‘Are you Eileen?’ Carroll asked, his hands thrust deep in the pockets of his raincoat in an effort to keep warm.
‘Why, are you looking for her?’
‘A friend of mine recommended Eileen to me, and you look like he said she did.’
‘Yeah, I’m Eileen,’ the young woman said with the trace of an Irish accent.
‘You’re Irish, are you?’
‘Look, what do you want – do you want to do some business?’
‘You could say that – I’m Detective Sergeant Dan Carroll – wait – hold on – I’m not here to arrest you – I just want to talk to you about the guy who pulled a knife on you recently. Tracy Goode told us you were attacked, and it would really help us in our investigation if you would talk to us....’
‘What investigation?’
‘We’re conducting an investigation into the deaths of two escorts, and we think the guy who threatened you might have something to do with it....’
‘What’s in it for me, then?’ Eileen asked, hoping that the detective would offer her a few quid.
‘Well – did you kn
ow Jo McCrae?’
‘Yeah – why?’
‘It’s her killer we’re after – you’d be doing us all a big favour if you just sat down and told us what happened....’
‘Us – who’s us?’
‘My partner is in the car over there – we won’t keep you more than a few minutes – would you like to get out of the cold for a while – maybe go for a drink?’
‘What’s in it for me then?’
‘Twenty.’
‘Okay.’
Eileen was about thirty, thirty two, she wore a short skirt and a pair of heels, along with a low-cut T-shirt. She must be freezing, Carroll thought, as they walked to the car.
As she got into the car, Carroll began to understand why she wasn’t cold – she was out of her head on some or other drug, and wouldn’t have felt it if you had beaten her black and blue.
Her face was gaunt. It was the face of a junkie, with sunken and blackened eyes surrounded by a pale, almost yellow skin – she probably had hepatitis, and maybe another few diseases too, he thought.
Somewhere in her past, this young Irishwoman had probably come over from Dublin or one of the other bigger towns in Ireland in search of work and had fallen in with the wrong crowd. Simple as that, he thought. It could happen to anyone.
Grant turned around to Carroll, who had taken a seat in the back of the car with Eileen.
‘Take us up to the Exmouth Arms behind Euston Station – Eileen has agreed to tell us what happened.’
‘Right,’ Grant said, feeling something like a chauffeur, and unsure as ever about Carroll’s idea of how to get information.
In Grant’s book you picked up whomever it was you wanted to talk to and you took them down to the station for a little chat. If they didn’t want to come, all you did was threaten to arrest them for being an accessory after the fact, or for withholding evidence. It worked, sure, but it also meant a lot of paperwork, and Carroll wasn’t very fond of that. Besides, he fancied a pint and he hadn’t been to the Exmouth for quite a while. It seemed like the logical solution.
The Exmouth was your garden variety English pub – nothing special – but the landlord was a bit of a character. For some unknown reason he always called Dan ‘Tip’ and Dan never knew why, but presumed it was because he had mentioned that some of his family were from Tipperary and still lived there. So it was no surprise to him to be greeted as ‘Tip’ by the shaven-headed landlord, who stood towering above his staff, behind the bar.
‘Howya, Con – how’s the Rolls these days?’ Carroll inquired with a smirk.
‘Just had her in for a service today and she’s running as sweet as ever – sure they’re the best cars in the world. I see you’ve got company – is this an official call or will you have a pint?’ Con said, eyeing up Dan’s partner and the young whore that accompanied him.
‘Well, it’s business, but I couldn’t turn down a pint of your stout, Con,’ Carroll said, turning to the young woman. ‘Eileen, what’ll you have?’
‘A large vodka and coke.’ Dan nodded to Con, who had heard the order.
‘And you, Sam – what’ll you have?’
‘I never drink when I’m on duty....’
‘And an orange juice for the copper here....’ Dan said with a smile. Con went to work, and the three took a seat over by the window.
The pub was fairly full, with the left-overs of the Friday evening after-work brigade still sloshing back the pints of lager before getting the tube train home. Most of them were office workers, and some were train drivers from across the road in Euston station. It was a nice mix of clientele, not that it would have worried Carroll much either way.
Eileen looked a little nervous. The last time she had been with a copper was the night before, and she hadn’t spoken more than about three words to him – it’s difficult to talk when you’ve got something in your mouth. Now here she was, sat between Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee, twiddling her thumbs. Con arrived with the drinks and placed a small whiskey in front of Carroll, along with the pint of stout he had ordered.
‘I only wanted the stout, Con,’ Carroll said, smiling.
‘Ah, get it into you, Tip – get it into you – you look like you could do with it....’
‘Cheers, Con.’
Grant opened up the proceedings this time, by introducing himself.
‘I’m Detective Grant – I’m Detective Carroll’s partner. We spoke to Tracy Goode earlier and she told us about how you were attacked last week. Can you tell us more about it?’
‘That friggin’ cow should learn to keep her mouth shut.’
‘What sort of man was it that attacked you – can you describe him?’ Grant asked.
‘He was around thirty or thirty five, medium build, I suppose.’
‘What colour hair did he have?’ Dan asked.
‘He was going slightly bald, and had a sort of reddish-blonde hair – he was a nasty piece of work, no messing....’
‘Tracy said something about a tattoo on his arm?’ Grant said, leaving the statement hang like a question in the air.
‘Yeah – he had a tattoo on his left arm – it looked very familiar – I’ve seen the same design a few times before.’
‘What was the design?’ Carroll asked.
‘A dagger with a scroll wrapped around it – it was a military thing I think....’
‘What were the words?’
‘Who dares wins, I think. Is this going to help you?’
‘It may very well, Eileen – get that drink into you and we’ll get you another, okay?’ Carroll said, turning to his partner. ‘An SAS man – or at least maybe he was an SAS man. It’ll be difficult trying to access the files on the guy, you know what those fucking army guys are like about confidentiality....’
‘What about the car he was driving – what make was it?’ Grant asked, turning to Eileen, who had thought that question time was over.
‘I don’t remember – I think it was an estate – a purple estate car....’
‘Any distinguishing marks – any bumps or scrapes?’
‘No, but it had two aerials – I thought it was you guys at first – the cops, you know? One of the aerials was magnetic, with a piece of cloth wrapped around the base, like taxis have, you know....’
‘So it was a taxi?’
‘I dunno, but he had a radio in it, like a CB or something.’
‘Were there any distinguishing marks on his face or body?’
‘He had a plaster on his face – it went up over his ear.’
‘What did he want you to do?’ Carroll asked, in an effort to confirm the story that Tracy had given them.
‘He wanted a BJ without a rubber – no one does that anymore – not with the risk of AIDS....’
‘So he forced you – how did he force you?’
‘He had a knife – a big thing it was, with teeth on it like a saw – one of those Rambo knives that they’re always trying to ban, you know. I jumped out of the car the minute he was finished, because he went crazy when I spat out his paste.’
‘Yeah, Tracy told us. You’ll have the same again, Eileen?’ Carroll asked.
‘Yeah, but make it pineapple in the vodka this time – a large vodka....’
Carroll got up and walked over to the bar, ordered the drinks from Con and let the pieces fall together in his mind. Whoever it was they were looking for was driving a purple estate car with a two-way radio and he was army or ex-army. It certainly narrowed the field somewhat, but it would still prove difficult trying to nail the guy.
Chapter 19
Sarah was having problems. Although she’d been diagnosed as having MS nearly ten years ago, she still had trouble living with the condition and minimising its effects on her nervous system.
Over the years, she had gone through more doctors and quacks in the alternative medicine scene than anyone else she knew. If there was an avenue to be explored that may help her live more comfortably, then she wholeheartedly explored it. And despite the fact that Dan wasn
’t always around to help her, Sarah never had a problem getting to where she wanted to go. The social services people had seen to that. Even though the carers they sent to her weren’t all that efficient or even friendly, she was ultimately very glad to receive their help – it left her feeling a little less isolated.
But over the last couple of weeks her symptoms had been getting worse, with a definite sign of slurring in her speech and an exaggeration of her shaking – especially in her hands.
Having gone through numerous periods of remission, which ultimately led to a return of her debilitating symptoms, Sarah had gotten used to disappointment – although it had taken time.